Fair Warning: A four-day road trip that spanned three concerts in three days in three cities is a bit of a tough thing to recap. If you are lazy and won't read the whole thing, at least take away this Cliff's Notes version - Alicia and Gina are great fun, Counting Crows concerts are well worth driving all over Texas, and there are approximately one and a half bajillion Jack In The Boxes between Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.
For those of you willing to stick around for the whole recap, I'll try and make it as fun as it was in real time.
Houston - Thursday, September 7th.
Alicia lands at 10 AM, Gina at 10:45. We all trade "welcome to Texas" presents - Alicia brought me homemade chocolate chip cookies, while Gina hooked me up with this cool shirt. We do the hotel check-in thing, and fill our afternoon downtime learning about John Mayer's music -> color synesthesia (hearing music stimulates his senses to experience different colors, depending on the type of music. One song might be red on top of white, while another is blueish grey). It's also worth noting that our hotel is right next to a Luby's Drive-Thru. Why does a cafeteria chain have a drive-thru? Do you have to bring the tray back? I can't believe we didn't investigate this further.
Soon enough it was time for the concert. Eliot Morris opened, and made the most of his 30 minute set. His cd What's Mine Is Yours is a great disc, and is well worth picking up. As for the Goo Goo Dolls...I wasn't that impressed. I had heard their sets were the exact same every night, down to the "witty banter" between the songs. Truer words have yet to be spoken. People that want to go to a concert and only hear exactly what they hear on the radio would probably enjoy a Goo concert. And people that are tone deaf will also enjoy the songs that Robbie sings. But enough about the too-pretty Goos, and on to the main event.
Counting Crows' set looked like this:
Anna Begins
Hard Candy
Omaha
Catapult
Ghost Train
Miami
Colorblind
Monkey
Mr. Jones (acoustic)
A Murder Of One (with Have You Seen Me Lately? alts towards the end)
A Long December (with "I am feathered" alts towards the end)
Hangin' Around (featuring Eliot Morris on the second verse)
--encore--
Round Here (with "Did you think that I was dreaming? / la la la / I am feathered" alt lyrics)
Holiday In Spain
A very high energy set. Adam and his dreadlocks get most of the attention, but you can't say enough about the musicianship of the entire seven man band. Every song - and I mean every song - is filled with so many little nuances. Immy jumps from electric guitar to mandolin to steel guitar, depending on the song. Add Dan on electric guitar, Bryson on either electric or acoustic, Millard on the bass, and you've got an incredibly layered stringed instrument section. Charley's either on piano, organ, or accordion. And think about how
good you have to be to make the accordion cool...Charley should be the
PR focus of the accordion industry. They've also got an incredible drummer in Jim, and then up front Adam is a consummate showman - selling the songs as each line comes from the heart he wears on his sleeve. Watching them play live really is a sight (and a million sounds) to behold.
San Antonio / Selma - Friday, September 8th.
On our way out of Houston we saw a Sonic attached to a gas station. Huh? My love for Sonic knows no bounds...but this is still a head-scratcher for me. Luckily, we also found a Starbucks for some much needed caffeine to push us West on I-10. We made it to the not-so-Raddison (and its too-loud-for-a-three-star-hotel air-conditioner) easily enough. Then it was off to the Verizon Wireless Ampitheatre, which is tucked away in secluded little Selma, Texas. We got in pretty early, so there was ample time to eat, watch the rain roll in, and mock those who wear t-shirts of the band they are about to see.
Friday's setlist looked like this:
Anna Begins
Mrs. Potter's Lullabye
Omaha
Time and Time Again
Big Yellow Taxi
Rain King (with Raining in Baltimore alts)
Miami
Black and Blue
A Long December (with "I am feathered" alts)
Hangin' Around (featuring Eliot Morris on the second verse)
--encore--
Ghost In You (acoustic)
Friend of the Devil
Holiday In Spain
Adam explained that they hadn't played Ghost In You in about ten years, so this was a completely unexpected treat. It was on the Clueless soundtrack (it plays in the scene where Cher is in Josh's car with him and his girlfriend and they argue over the dialogue from Hamlet). It's a cover of the original by Psychedelic Furs, though the arrangement is different. I have loved this song for years, so I was ecstatic when I heard the opening notes.
Gina and Alicia will want me to mention that I missed the turn into the Raddison parking lot that night. There were also several failed attempts at some U-turns throughout the day. I blame this entirely on the street planning of the city of San Antonio, and truly bizaare Holiday Inn parking policies.
Dallas - Saturday, September 9th.
We stopped for some delicious Jack In The Box in Austin. This might have been Alicia's favorite moment of the trip. I think she filled her camera's memory card with pics of our receipt and hot sauce packets for her 99 cent tacos. Somewhere along the way we took pictures of our little ipod family, which combined to form some fun road trip songs (see yesterday's Road Trip EP mix). Once we got to Dallas, I might have missed the first turn in to the Crowne Plaza off I-35 and Mockingbird. I like to think I was just familiarizing myself with the neighborhood before stopping. Whatever. We also talked Tara into joining us for the show. She was a Counting Crows rookie, so it was fun to introduce her to a lot of their music in a live setting.
Saturday night's set looked a lot like Thursday's in Houston, with the exception that they substituted Big Yellow Taxi for Monkey. I could write for days about what I liked about each song. Immy's mandolin on Anna Begins, Hard Candy and Miami and Catapult all had incredible energy to go with accompanying photo stills / video footage on the large video screens behind the band. Really the entire lighting designers and stage set up crews deserve some kind of awards. Colorblind is such a beautiful song, with Millard absolutely killing on the piano. But the absolute highlights were Round Here and A Murder of One. The studio versions are classics in their own right, but the way they reinvent them on stage is jaw-dropping. The music swirls and builds and drops to a whisper before powering back...it's like van Gogh's brush strokes set to music. I'll try and find a clip on YouTube from some shows this summer...words can't do justice to these songs, which in Round Here's case clocked in at about 12 minutes. Just a fantastic show.
And then it was over. One last trip to Jack In The Box before dropping Alicia and Gina off at the Crowne Plaza. In 2003 I did the "three Crows shows in three days" thing on my own, but having the two of them along for the ride made it so much more fun. Ladies, the time spent hanging out and driving equaled the concert experiences for me. Thanks for the memories. And the shirt. And the cookies. Til next time....
i am fun. david is actually funny. alicia is awesome. tara was fun toooo.
Posted by: gina | September 15, 2006 at 08:10 PM